My favorite part of kayaking - Nayra Garcia

My favorite part of kayaking is not the beauty of the river or trying stout lines. While I also love those things, I continue to kayak because I get to meet new people. Spending time with other cool kayakers from around the world is so fun. You can goof off with one another, and learn about each other. You can learn so much from each other as well. At Keeners, I have met people from all over. Because the kayak community is so small, I hope that I can paddle with all of them again at some point. 

My time at Keeners - Kai Burge

Life as a Keener is a experience that you will not forget. You learn to cook, clean, and communicate with your cabin mates.

You lean that taking care of yourself is a very big part of Keeners. By not taking care of yourself you can no go kayaking.

Keeners is a very fun place to be and I have a great time. It was so fun and to make friends and go kayaking every day. Looking back at Keeners I am very lucky to have come here with such a nice group of friends.

Reflection - Hannah Musgrove

Just one session of Keeners has shaped me into a person completely different from when I came here. When I came here, I was completely terrified. I did not want to get beatdown or give a speech in front of people or get worked in Garb. Leaving Keeners, I am grateful for these opportunities, and I don’t dread (most of) them. It goes to show that I am way less scared of things that are inherently safe after this program. I’ve also grown my love for mustard and salsa on this trip which would have never happened if not for the camp. 

However, I still have healthy fear; thanks to the safety program and the videos that Stephen shows us every morning. I think that it’s so important to keep this bit of fear for Keeners so that we don’t go home trying to attempt stunts that are possible on the Ottawa but not on other rivers.

Going home, I feel so grateful for the improvement that I can see in myself on and off the water. I am so glad to meet this generation of kayakers that I will no doubt meet again later in life. 

By Henry Blankenship

This is the last blog I will be writing, so it is about this last week. On Monday we had speech night, but I didn’t have a speech topic so I just made one up. Some of the speeches were good, but most were just really funny.

On Tuesday we had tacos, but instead Elevator's Shaft and Dragon's Tongue.

On Wednesday all we did was go down the Main channel. On Bigwater extra bacon baconator bojangles beatdown Thursday there were a ton of good beatdowns. Nayra's was the best. I did ok, but I got the triple crown beat down and I’m happy.

Importance of rest day - Dashiell Hall

I paddle around 4-7hrs 5 days a week. Feeling sore after paddling is quite common in the shoulders back core, and even hips, it is important to take time off to allow my muscles to repair themselves and for my body to rest off fatigue.

If you don’t take a rest day after multiple days of kayaking straight, it can lead to overtraining symptoms, this lead to increased body fat, your mood can also become be more moody in general. Your chances of injury are also reduced by resting so you have a lesser chance of that shoulder injury acting up. To much training can mess with your sleep
it can also help your immune system. It allows you to relax, socialize with your friends, get something done (like your laundry, blog or maybe give you some time to cook up that spicy new freestyle edit to show all your friends all your hard work), or free up some time to pursue another one of your hobbies

What to do during your rest day:

You can either passively rest or actively rest. Active rest may consist of doing light physical activities like throwing a football or playing spike ball. Active recovery increases blood circulation, which helps remove waste products from soft tissue that have been broken down by intense exercise. Fresh blood flow then delivers nutrients that help repair and rebuild muscles, tendons, and ligaments. Passive rest is when your just chilling, watching a movie, or scrolling through tik tok. Another super important part of passive rest is sleep, most muscle repair and growth happens during that.

So if you want to see those paddling gains, or don’t want to feel sore or super tired the next day when you go back to paddling make sure you grab a lot of sleep, go to bed early or take some naps in your free time

Overall even if you don’t want to take that weekend rest day, you should - since you’ll feel better in the long run. You’ll be able to get more out of coaches on the water, have more fun, get more gains, and be happier in general. So take that rest day as a blessing to make you a better kayaker overall, be more attentive, happier, less tired, be able to do and learn more on the water.

Reflection - Quinn Goddard

Tomorrow is our last day on the Ottawa river and this trip has been nothing but perfect. It’s very rare as a young kayaker to paddle with 20 other kids your same age with some of the best coaches in the world. Like most summer camps there are a couple of those kids that I might never talk to again, but some of the connections that I’ve made will be life long, some of us are already planning trips together for the future.

Some of my family have asked how it stays fun paddling the same 5 rapids every day, and when I think about it, there was never a day I was bored. Every day we would almost be a little late to takeout because we spent to much time playing. The coaches have been very creative and good at making sure every day is the best.

I feel like I’ve improved in many different areas, from being a better person to getting more confidence in my kayaking to even being able to cook more food for myself. Keeners will definitely be one of my highlights in my life that I’ll remember until the day I die.

Last week at Keeners - Bodie Hilleke

My name is Bodie Hilleke. This is my last day at Keeners.

First, one highlight was getting the golden ribbon on freestyle Friday. Another thing that I liked was the First Aid course. I liked the First Aid course because we got to play with fake blood and stuff. Also I liked learning a flat water cartwheel and some other flat water tricks. I also got to run Dragon's Tongue and Elevator's Shaft lastly I dropped into right side Phil’s and got tumbled. That concludes my blog.